The Salute
by cabepfir
Summary: Hermione is a Trekkie (since TOS) and Severus is a Star Wars fan. Both are extremely passionate about their fandoms and don't respect the others'. Of course, they work together at Hogwarts. How do they reconcile their very passionate fandoms with their growing attraction to each other? Written for the SS/HG gift fest 2015.


This fic was written for Rayvyn2k for the 2015 SS/HG gift fest (on livejournal.) It was accompanied by an illustration that you can find on the relative lj page (sorry for not being able to provide links here.) My deepest thanks and gratitude to my beta, DelphiPsmith, and to her and Amorette for their help with formatting. More notes at the end.

***SSHG***

The first time Severus Snape watches _Star Wars_ is on the last day of the Easter holidays, in a dingy cinema in the suburbs of Manchester. Despite the fact that students (also the Muggle ones) are still on holiday throughout the country, the theatre is half empty during the midafternoon show. He and Lily sit in one of the back rows and have no one in close proximity. Lily munches her popcorn loudly – she has bought the largest box, as she usually does – and between crunches chatters incessantly about the movie, liberated by the lack of people next to them. She likes the movie a lot, is happy, and Severus is happy in her happiness. He comes to like the movie too, because Lily enjoys it so much. Whenever he is in a dark theatre with Lily, the only thing he can think about is kissing her, as couples often do around them, but obviously he restrains himself, keeps his hands on the armrests, forces his mind to focus on the screen instead of on Lily's mouth munching the popcorn. She talks, he listens half to her and half to the movie. At the interval Severus stands up and looks at her. _You are the most beautiful woman in all the galaxies, far and near,_ he wants to say, but instead he mutters "I have to piss" and drags his feet to the toilet.

When they leave the theatre, Lily is beaming. "Let's watch it again during the summer," she says. Severus nods. He hopes.

One month later, at Hogwarts, Severus calls Lily a Mudblood and she doesn't listen to his apologies.

They never watch Star Wars together again.

***SSHG***

The first time Hermione Granger watches _Star Trek_ is during the Christmas holidays when she is in fifth grade. The weather is terrible outside and the house is filled with relatives, aunts and cousins. There isn't the quietness necessary to read, and besides, the holiday idleness infects her too. So she watches TV with her cousins. She tends to dislike the majority of TV series, but something in this one catches her attention. Maybe because there is logic in what the characters are made to do, and because the problems they face are not the usual fare – more serious questions are at stake, cohabitation and collaboration between different races, personal and social responsibility, and much more. She likes that women are not diminished or exploited, that there is racial diversity, that characters show respect for one another. Most of all, there's adventure and a sense of justice and a search for peace, all the things she treasures and believes in.

Over the following years, when she is at home, she tries to watch reruns of the show whenever they are on TV. She buys videocassettes and has an Enterprise model on her desk at home. When she has to send her parents to Australia, she Reducioes the model and packs it in her mother's luggage.

The model is still there when she is able to find her parents again and give them back their memories. In that moment, she knows someone from space has protected them.

***SSHG***

When Snape resurrects after Nagini's bite, he finds that his breathing has been seriously compromised. Healers and nurses fuss around him all day in St. Mungo's, performing spells on his mauled throat, chanting and wand-waving. They surround his head with a bubble of oxygen, which he hates because it's worrisomely similar to the snake's cage in which the Dark Lord encapsulated his head.

Finally, after weeks of work, the healers complete their spells and the skin and tissues of his neck are restored, although scar-crossed and red. He can breathe, but his respiration is heavy and halting, and he can't walk for even short distances without gasping. He pants. His voice is but a pale spectre of what it was. It is raspy and low, frequently interrupted by his inhalations and exhalations.

It is one of the many ironies of his life that, in this reprieved second life that has been bequeathed to him, he has turned into Darth Vader. It is ironic because, all the black cloaks, dark side and obedience to the Emperor notwithstanding, he always imagined himself as Han Solo (though without that furry sidekick), travelling among the planets along a route of his own, and finally winning the love of his princess. Maudlin, he knows, but when watching movies even Severus Snape can dream of being the hero.

Now he is stuck with Vader's staccato breathing forever.

***SSHG***

When Hermione sets her feet on the Hogwarts stairs again as Professor Granger, for the first time she feels intimidated by those walls. All the trepidation she never felt when she was eleven, she feels now. She has helped to rebuild the castle, but being an official representative of it now makes her stagger. At eighteen (nineteen in a few weeks) she is Hogwarts' youngest professor in three centuries, surpassing even Professor Snape who was twenty when he joined the staff. She is too young for the role, but at the same time she feels unaccountably old. As old as an army going to battle again, after the previous war has barely ended.

She remembers that Captain Kirk was the youngest Starfleet captain when he was tasked with leading the _Enterprise_ on its five-year mission, and finds strength in the comparison. She can surely lead her Hogwarts mission, being strong and logical at the same time, and she will earn the respect of students and colleagues alike over time.

Hermione is to teach Defence Against the Dark Arts. She accepted the job hesitantly, knowing that it was the position Professor Snape sought all his life, and could now accept without reservation: but Snape is apparently content with returning to the Potions lab and allowing Slughorn to finally and definitely retire. Snape actually seems more content in general, though with less voice.

She places the model of the _Enterprise_ on her desk in her office, and before each class she reminds herself to boldly go where no man has gone before.

***SSHG***

For the first Halloween party of Hogwarts' new course, Severus has no doubts about how he will dress. He has always hated Halloween because it is the anniversary of Lily's death, and he has always hated parties because he is Snape, but he is not a coward, and has decided that for once he will tackle the issue straight out and in the open. This year he will dress up as Darth Vader. He transfigures a hat into Vader's helmet and mask, a vest into his breastplate and an old broomstick into a lightsaber. His usual black robe and cloak will do the rest.

He breathes like Darth Vader? He will wear Darth Vader's mask for one evening. He looks like Vader? He will dress like Vader. He has stopped fleeing. The best way to fight his fear of masks and cages – to wear one. To face the pitying looks of his colleagues, the distrustful glances of his students – to strut around in full villain garb. He hasn't supported the dark side for almost twenty years, but for one night he can explicitly take it on.

***SSHG***

For the first Halloween party of Hogwarts' new course, Hermione has no doubts about how she will dress. Thinking about the _Enterprise_ has sustained her through her first months of teaching, so it's natural that she will dress as one of the crew. She is only uncertain about what colour to wear. The captain's gold? Engineering staff's red? Science's blue? Uhura's miniskirt or Next Generation uniform with trousers? She fiddles with the colours and length so much that she feels less like an _Enterprise_ crew member and more like one of the Sleeping Beauty's fairy godmothers. In the end, however, she settles for a classic Uhura dress, only lengthening the hem a bit so she will be comfortable dancing in it. It is an iconic dress, worn by a brave woman, and she feels proud of her choice as she enters the Great Hall. She greets colleagues and students graciously, accepts a cup of butterbeer, chats nonchalantly.

***SSHG***

To make a truly grand entrance, Severus is late to the party. He encounters some difficulty walking with a mask that greatly impairs his view, so by the time he figures out a spell to enlarge the eyeholes and reaches the Great Hall, he is positively the last guest to arrive. Ugly and comely costumes dot the hall, but the first thing that catches his attention is a red spot there at his left, and the mass of brown hair above it: Hermione Granger in a _Star Trek_ dress.

 _Oh._

***SSHG***

Hermione turns her head as she hears a low exhalation over her shoulder. A few feet behind her stands Darth Vader. She finally, _finally_ realises what Snape's breath has reminded her of these past months and that escaped her: Darth Vader. A Trekkie doesn't often think about _Star Wars_. He is, obviously, perfect for the role and Hermione brightens, as she always does for something whose pieces fits perfectly with each other. She laughs.

***SSHG***

She laughs, a clear, silvery laugher that is not mocking or contemptuous. For a moment he's crossed by the memory of Lily's pure laugher, a laugher of joy and inner happiness born out of places he has never known. It is as if Granger is happy to see him there.

Above her black boots, her knees are small and nicely shaped, clad in dark sheer stockings. She holds a cup elegantly with her hand, her eyes brown and crinkling in amusement. Only a few students have recognised their Muggle costumes, but she evidently has, Muggle-born as she is, and somehow it pleases her. Or entertains her.

***SSHG***

"Having fun, Granger?"

"No! I mean, yes, I do appreciate a costume done well. I wasn't laughing to excite your wrath, sir – er, knight? Jedi?"

"Master of the universe is fine, Granger."

"I didn't think you would be in such a good mood, especially considering, um, whom you are dressed as and whom I am."

"Why? Because you are evidently a _Star Trek_ fan and I am a _Wars'_ fan?"

"Yes. Shouldn't we be quarrelling over our fandoms?"

"Fan... what?"

"A fandom. A group of fans of the same book or movie."

"I see. Well, I was not aware that I belonged to one of these fan... things."

"Apparently, neither are most of the people here. I expected more people to recognise my costume immediately, but even the half-blood students couldn't tell who I was."

"Uhm. I had a similar impression. Most of the students continue to be worried about Snape-me, not about Darth Vader-me."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Don't provoke me, Granger. You know what we both are capable of."

"Really? Well, I've always wanted to try a lightsaber. Would you like to spar with me, professor?"

"What?"

"We have to prove that we are indeed quarrelling, to keep our good names as fans. Only a few blows, would you mind? It will be fun, I promise."

***SSHG***

With a swift gesture, Granger transfigures her cup into a lightsaber and faces him, holding it with two hands. Though her attitude is serious, in her eyes there is the same pure laugher as before, and a smile is playing at the corner of her lips.

Now all the people surrounding them are observing them, some curious, some whispering. Headmistress McGonagall is looking at them with a benign smile of half-interest.

Granger grips her lightsaber and the laser sparks with the familiar sound. What does she have in mind? Apparently, she's only enjoying the moment. She is so young, after all, barely into adulthood, and it's only normal that she would like to play, to act.

He is twice her age and usually feels as old as the world. After his resurrection, he often perceived himself as even older than that – having surpassed and survived time itself. But for one night, even he can feel young again and play.

***SSHG***

With a swift gesture, Snape activates his lightsaber – ah, the genuine wonder of a lightsaber fuelled by magic! – and stands _en garde_ in front of her. Suddenly, the memory of the disastrous duelling club flickers in Hermione's mind, along with the image of Snape's nimble movements in that stance. But she doesn't have much time to revel in that memory. As if choreographed, they raise their swords at the same time and bring them crashing against one another. The familiar sound of the lasers hums around them as they toss their weapons in the air. It is playful, but there is also a hidden tension in this, some meaning she can't completely grasp. Snape's laboured breathing is perfectly in tune with Darth Vader's, and she watches his masked face, searching for signs of dangerous asphyxia. She looks through the mask's holes, straight into his eyes. In the shadow of the helmet, Snape's black eyes are blacker than ever, two holes that drag her in, bottomless and unfathomable. She is distracted, and her blade screeches against Snape's. She pulls it away and stops for a moment.

"Would you like a break, professor?" she asks, though is she who would like a break, to dispel the effect Snape's eyes are having on her. "I don't want to burden your lungs too much."

"Tired already, Granger?" he mocks.

"I? Not at all. I was worried about you."

"Humph. Still a bad liar."

And he slashes his sword again.

***SSHG***

Despite his cavernous breathing, Severus doesn't feel tired. On the contrary, a spark of Granger's enthusiasm seems to have touched him as well. He could go on duelling for hours. Her movements are agile and have a mesmerising quality he wouldn't have predicted. Her eyes are so alive, and her cheeks are flushing red from the exercise. He could look at her for hours, at the circles she paints in the air with her arms and legs. Even if it's playful, in their dance there's a hidden meaning he can't completely define. They twirl and find themselves very close to each other, their swords sliding against one another down to the hilt. His black cloak, billowing, brushes against her legs, and her red-clad torso is so close he could stretch out a hand and touch her. He looks at her and his breathing is even heavier than before.

Suddenly Granger steps back and averts her eyes from him. The buzz of the lightsaber ceases. She turns around and addresses the public. "For those who don't know, Professor Snape and I just played a scene from a Muggle movie called _Star Wars_. Professor Snape is dressed as one of the movie's characters and I as one from _Star Trek_ , another Muggle series. This was done in the spirit of Muggle-Wizard cooperation and to support the knowledge of Muggle culture by the magical community. We encourage you all to study some traits of Muggle culture." She smiles encouragingly. "That's it; we can go back to our party."

Murmurs, muffled chuckles, then students and staff look elsewhere, from the buffet table to the decorated walls. People lose interest so quickly. The unprecedented lightsaber duel of Professor Snape and Professor Granger will quickly be forgotten, as scholastic news so often is.

Despite himself, Severus feels a hint of dissatisfaction. After all that excitement, the disappointment rapidly washes over him. All that elaborate costuming, the unusual protagonism, and people still care more about food. Even Granger is already chatting with someone else. Leaving is the best decision. After all, Halloween has always been a disgrace, and not even dressing up as Vader has the power to change that law. Severus turns to go.

As he strides next to Granger, she turns her head and looks at him for a moment. Though her stance is serious now, there's still that smile in her eyes, an unspoken word in her half-open mouth. Her stare follows him until he's out of the room, and for the first time in – decades? ever? – Severus feels something like hope fluttering in his chest.

***SSHG***

Over the next few days, Hermione is restless. The lightsabre duel lasted for maybe five minutes, however it is seared in her memory and she constantly relives those few moments. How much time has passed since the last time she simply _played_ with someone, with no evil artefacts to seek and destroy, with no castles to rebuild, parents to rescue, friends to save? And with Professor Snape of all people! And how much time has passed since the last time she diplomatically backtracked from a situation, instead of facing it head-on? The sense of having cleared the table before the meal was over gnaws at her.

So, a couple of weeks after the Halloween party, Hermione enters into Snape's office, her spine straight.

"I really can't understand," she begins without preamble, "how you could be a fan of _Star Wars_."

Surrounded by half-marked homework, Snape, who was gawking at her entrance, narrows his eyes and adjusts himself on the back of his chair. "And so because…?"

"It's not even true science fiction. It's a space opera."

"And since when, among your other talents, do you have a profound expertise in science fiction?"

"I have read Asimov's _Foundation_ series…"

"Salon sci-fi, without either large-scale descriptions or attention to detail."

"… _Starship Trooper_ s…"

"Psssss! A Victorian's children book!"

"… and I've watched all the episodes of _Star Trek_ I could."

"Humph! You called _Star Wars_ a space opera as if that was a pejorative definition, but you have failed to take into account the individual words. 'Opera' means it contains all the greatest elements of musical opera: passion, beauty and intensity."

"Melodrama, implausible plots, inflated gestures."

"Whereas _Star Trek_ , that you favour so much, is emotionally shrivelled, afflicted by storytelling dwarfism, and filmed with a grand budget of one Knut."

"Because now budget has anything to do with quality."

"In visual entertainment, it certainly does."

"So you admit _Star Wars_ is all show and no substance."

"With the lights out, it's less dangerous. Here we are now; entertain us."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Visual beauty is a part of the story. It's an experience, Granger: going to the theatre and diving into something more beautiful than the street outside."

"Again you mention beauty. But what about structure? i _Star Wars_ /i has more plot holes than a golf course."

"Such as?"

"I remember that, while watching it, I was aghast by the lack of narrative coherence."

"I am aghast by your sheep-like adoration of an overpraised series that is unable to stir a true emotion in the viewer."

"I appreciate a series that is good in every aspect, and deservedly appreciated by millions of people."

"Good is the tomb of sublime, Granger."

"Good is the tomb of poor writing, Professor."

And with that, Hermione leaves as abruptly as she entered. She feels indescribably better. The balance has been restored: she has dedicated some time to arguing – er, discussing – with Professor Snape, has fulfilled the requirements of a fandom vs. fandom bicker, has achieved a draw so that both parties can be equally satisfied, and (more than everything else), has maintained her calmness and composure throughout the debate. As she climbs back to the Gryffindor tower, the uneasy knot in her stomach has loosened, and she's at peace with herself again.

The experiment is so successful that Hermione decides to repeat it, until it has become a habit. Whenever she thinks of other _Star Wars_ details that could be discussed, she walks down to Snape's office, surprises him grading papers or reading, and starts talking. Her attacks on _Star Wars_ are marred by the fact that she has only watched Episode IV, and that only once, when it was distributed again in cinemas for the twentieth anniversary. She reverts to roundabout expressions and general considerations. Snape in turn has only a superficial understanding of _Star Trek_ , so their circumvolutions are, once again, balanced.

Her lack of first-hand knowledge however irks her, so during the Christmas holidays she rents videocassettes of the trilogy and watches them very carefully. She takes notes.

***SSHG***

On the morning of his birthday, Severus finds a Darth Vader action figure on his desk. There's no note attached, but he has no doubts about who sent it there. He takes it into his bedchamber and tucks it in the night table drawer. That night he takes it out again and admires it.

He never owned such a toy as a child – if what he possessed back then could be called toys, and also if this statuette, on the other hand, could belong to the general definition of 'toy.' Is it clearly a figurine made for adults, not for children, without joints, with a plastic body and a fabric cloak. He turns and re-turns in his hands this unusual gift.

Everything about the last months, he realises, has been unusual. He frequently had discussions with Dumbledore before his inevitable demise, has companionable meetings with Minerva about pedagogy and Quidditch, and used to be on polite terms with poor Charity Burbage, but no young woman has ever entered – repeatedly – in his office just to i _talk/i_ with him. He sees it clearly as an extension of the Halloween party: their lightsaber duel has become a verbal duel, the words moving between them like gestures in a choreography. It's a dance once again. Although the two of them don't even come within a metre of each other, they are, in fact, dancing.

Granger is allowing him to be frivolous once again, carefree, liberated. In their discussions there is no mention of saving the world (unless for fictional purposes), no oaths to be kept at the cost of someone's life, no snakes, no surviving orphans (or none actually living.) At thirty-nine, Severus feels young again – or maybe he is living his youth for the first time.

What he doesn't know is where these conversations will lead. Granger is surely going through a phase – one day she will just forget about their discussions, remain in her part of her castle, and the world will go on as it has always done. He is, after all, the teacher closest to her age (at almost forty!), has some experience of the Muggle world (though rusty), and Granger evidently needs someone to talk to. She can't befriend the older students, her peers, not if she wants to maintain some semblance of authority over them – a problem that afflicted Severus too, when he was tasked with teaching Potions for the first time. Moreover, she is used to having male friends (friends! what a preposterous notion!) and since he allowed her to enter in his office and start rambling that first afternoon, how can he stop her now? Not that he wants it to stop. It will stop by itself, he thinks, the day she finds another project to work on, another field of study, another friend.

He doesn't ask himself such questions. He doesn't want to hear the answers. He never truly expects her to return to his office in the late afternoons, doesn't hope for it, doesn't count on it.

She simply returns.

They simply talk.

***SSHG***

It's the breathing, she reflects, so rhythmic and lulling, like waves on the water's edge. It is somehow comforting, this heavy breath, a sign that he's alive and has survived the war, has survived Voldemort. It follows her as she leaves his room and walks down the corridor of Hogwarts, back to her room. As she climbs onto her bed, sometimes she wonders how it would feel to fall asleep to the sound of that breath, enveloped in it like a blanket.

It doesn't make her think about Darth Vader any more. (It crosses her mind that Snape must not have liked the figurine: it is nowhere to be found in his office, and he never thanked her for it. It probably wasn't the best choice of a gift.)

They have exhausted all arguments about their fandom dispute, so when there's nothing else to talk about, Snape asks her to narrate for him some episodes of _Star Trek_. She remembers them perfectly, of course, and he seems quite satisfied with listening to her recount them and criticising their faults. But most of the times he just listens.

And breathes.

"You always talk about beauty," she says, stirring her cup. (He has started offering her tea. She has started bringing biscuits.) "All I see is a clumsy excuse for a movie."

It's a conversation they have had many times before.

"Think of Tatooine's two moons," he replies, "or of Hoth's white expanses. Think of the Death Star's destruction, or…"

"…or the Ewoks."

"The Ewoks were a faux pas in _Return of the Jedi_ , I'll grant you that. But you cannot dismiss all the rest because of a single slip."

"And Wookies."

"And AT-ATs."

"That's a war machine! I honestly can't understand what could be beautiful about them."

"You seem to identify beauty only with order and structure. A very neoclassical approach – or maybe dictatorial? You should be well aware of what kind of people liked and copied classical art."

"Beauty happens when the form reflects the content… there cannot be beauty in a work of art if the individual parts of it don't collaborate and show beauty themselves. It is the sum of the single parts. When all the parts, content and form, correspond, we can talk of beauty."

"How very Winckelmannian of you. But the world doesn't work according to your order and logic, my little Spock."

Hermione turns her head and blushes slightly at that. At a certain point, he has taken to call her "my little Spock." It is meant to be diminishing, an updated version of "Know-It-All," but it now starts with "my" and she can't help but find it endearing.

"It obeys to chaos and chance," he continues, "and is ruled by incoherence and disparity. It is in the randomness of existence that we find some tiny sparks of beauty: but those sparks are blindingly bright… an oasis in the desert. Don't you rather think that beauty shines best in contrast with ugliness?"

"If this means that we can only rescue a few moments of _Star Wars_ among the general inconclusiveness," she retorts, "I can agree with you. If it means defending a generic romantic against a more classical vision, I will stand with the latter: beauty is harmony and peace, not conflict, and is generated by the correspondence of the inside and the outside."

" _Kalos kagathos_."

"Exactly."

***SSHG***

She watches him with intent eyes, but her head, tilted back, rests on the armchair, leaving a creamy triangle of her neck visible. All the rest of her body is bundled on the chair under a plaid.

It is February and it's freezing outside.

He doesn't want to look at her neck because he fears losing the thread of the conversation. Sometimes he doesn't know if they are still talking about _Star Wars_ and _Star Trek_ or about something else entirely. Sometimes he has the impression she is talking about him, that she wants to demonstrate something.

"So beauty is goodness: the next motto of Gryffindor House."

"I i _do/i_ believe that goodness is beauty, but not in the sense you are implying. On the contrary. 'A person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.'"

She watches him very intently.

"A quote, Granger."

"It is."

"From _Star Trek_?"

"No!" She laughs.

"From _The Standard Book of Spells_ , then."

"Wrong again," she grins. "From Roald Dahl, a Muggle author for children."

"Evidently _Star Trek_ doesn't even offer useful quotes."

"Oh, you'd be surprised!" She laughs again. Then yawns.

"It's late, Granger. There are classes tomorrow. Go."

"I'll tell you some good quotes from Star Trek next time."

"Next time, Mr. Spock."

"Good night, Wordsworth."

She leaves the room, laughing and yawning at the same time.

Her laugh is quite necessary as proof of his theory about beauty.

***SSHG***

At the end of March, one by one, students start to get sick. Though the weather is horrible, they sweat profusely, but they are not hot to touch and they have no fever. After sweating for a couple of days, they begin to cough. They are taken to the infirmary, given Pepper-Up. The cough worsens in a few hours; by night the children are wracked by expectorations.

Classes are half-empty; more and more students arrive in the infirmary each day. The rooms closest to the infirmary are equipped with beds as well to make room for everyone. Younger children seem to suffer more than the older students, but the contagion spreads no matter what age or sex.

Eight days into the epidemic, Hermione starts sweating.

Poppy doesn't know what to do. Headmistress McGonagall, Rolanda Hooch and Aurora Sinistra are sick as well. They call in experts from St. Mungo's: they don't want to move the children for fear of causing a wider contagion.

Healers and mediwizards try cures, brew potions, burn incense to purify the air, rub young chests with eucalyptus and peppermint. The coughing wracks the walls of Hogwarts unceasingly, echoes everywhere, becomes the stuff of nightmares.

Coughing, feverish, Hermione drags herself to the library, digs through the shelves, peruses the Restricted Section. There must be a cause other people have overlooked, a disease described somewhere, a cure prescribed somewhere else. She reads until the words blur before her eyes, until she's freezing cold and collapses on the table in a seizure of coughing. She repeats the cycle the next day.

Severus – she has started calling him Severus – brings her tea and blankets in the library. Irma Pince is ill, so she can't complain about the drink and food. He takes the books from Hermione's hands when she isn't able to hold them any further and continues to scan them. Severus hasn't been infected.

The people not infected are fewer and fewer every day. They have to find a cure quickly. Some people's throats are so irritated they can no longer eay. Mucus chokes them. They waste away. Magical IVs are prepared.

Hermione flips through the pages. Haste, haste. What will happen to her students? Will Hogwarts always have to suffer? What if Severus, too, falls ill?

She browses older tomes, deciphers faded handwriting, translates Runes. Her fingers tremble as she turns the ancient pages; her eyes water when she's assailed by a coughing spasm. Balled-up handkerchiefs surround her.

Page after page, maladies and curses are discarded. Is it _Bordetella pertussis_? _Moraxella catarrhalis_? No, _Coronavirus_? No. And then...

Is it…? But maybe, maybe it is…

"It's a Bisur," Hermione croaks, pointing her weak finger to the manuscript. " _The Bisur is an arkane affliction, affecting the respiratory systeme. This parasyte is invisible and intangible. The Bisur lives in the open ayre, but it prefers the ayre inside the throate. When the Bisur affliction appeares, it manifestes by an attack on the respiration. The Bisur creates a lair within the cricovocal membrane, whence it interceptes and swallows the air as it is inhaled by the person. The Bisur thus functiones as a parasyte of the larynx. When it has swallowed suffycient air and has growne its wings, generally after twenty-fower days within the larynx, the Bisur deposits its eggs. The Bisur's eggs fall into the lungs, wherein they can fynde larger amounts of air than in the larynx, and there they remayne, depryving the victim of his breath. They hatch forth as immature larvae and taketh six days to grow into fully adult Bisur. When they have reached full growth, they leave the victim's lungs, one by one, through the nose. Once the last Bisur has departed the lungs, the victim falls dead, as no air can be found in their lungs anymore. This parasyte is very rare, but extremely contagious & dangerous when it appeares_."

"So that's why I couldn't understand what it was," Severus muses. "I was looking for Dark magic, but this is not a Dark curse: it's an elemental creature, older than the distinction between Light and Dark."

"It must have been quiescent in Hogwarts since forever. The reconstruction of the castle must have waken it somehow."

"I would not exclude the possibility that the Dark Lord may have planted it somewhere, to use in case of need… or just because he liked the idea."

"Oh, Severus, what can we do? It's now day twenty-one since the epidemic began. We cannot allow the Bisur to lay eggs. We have its description, but there's no mention of how to fight it. Maybe" – her body shakes with a hacking cough – "we could attract it out of people's larynxes? _Diffindo_? How?" Hermione's last words are almost lost in a burst of coughing.

"Don't worry," says Snape. "I have a plan."

And before Hermione raises her head again, he has left the room.

***SSHG***

Fast, faster, Severus runs through the corridors of Hogwarts, past his office, past the classrooms, across the courtyard, up the stairs to the Middle Tower. His boots clatter lonely on the stone; the halls are eerily silent, no students' laughter, no chattering, no girls' squeaks: just the harsh staccato of coughing echoing back from the Infirmary Wing. Up, up the steps he goes with the coughing at his heels, tugging with a skeletal finger at the hem of his robe. He won't be watching something like that again, no, anything but that: watching her die before his very eyes, killed by something that the Dark Lord – surely the Dark Lord – brought into the castle. He can't see her die; it's already too much to see her lithe body racked by convulsions. He has heard each single hacking of Hermione in his very bones. This cannot happen again.

He reaches the hexagonal room at the corner of the Tower and wards himself in. _Protego Horribilis._ _Cave Inimicum_. _Fianto Duri_.

No students lining the corridors, no accusatory glances, no homework to correct – it is a tempting dream, for a moment, to imagine himself alone in the castle, undisturbed. But it wouldn't be peace. It wouldn't be – living.

" _Bisur Conjurus_!" he screams, as powerfully as his vocal chords allow. "Come here, Bisur, and leave the throats of students and professors alike! _Mobili-Bisur_!"

Outside, below him in the halls of Hogwarts, there is a sudden silence. Silence as in: no more coughing, no more rasping. It lasts but a minute, followed by a lively prattle, surprised gasps. It is, perhaps, one of the most reassuring sounds he has ever heard.

Outside his tower room is the Bisur. Though he cannot see it yet, Severus can feel it, pressing on the room's glass windows, looking for more air.

"Come inside, my dear," he purrs. " _Specialis Revelio_!"

Suddenly visible, the Bisur passes through the walls and French windows, slowly pouring into the room. Like a grey, puffy cloud, it condenses near the ceiling. The smoke agglomerates, shifts its form, becomes greyer. It looks like a bull prodding the soil with its hoof, ready to attack.

"Oh yes," continues Severus. "Come to me, attack me. We can resolve this alone, you and I."

The Bisur lowers its horns.

"NO!" Hermione's scream arrives before he has time to hear the shuffling of her feet. "No, Severus, what are you doing?"

The Bisur snorts.

Hermione's head rises above the stair's landing. She's panting from her run, worried – but she isn't coughing.

"Don't touch the glass!" he orders in his most commanding voice. "It is trapped here, but it is still contagious. Stay away, Granger!"

"I don't care if it's contagious," she snaps. "I want to help. What are you going to do? What can I do?"

"Stay. Out," he says, slowly and quietly. "It is the most logical thing."

"No! No! I won't let–"

" _EPOXIMISE_!"

In a swirl of black smoke, the cloudy elemental creature descends into Severus' open mouth and nostrils, flowing and flowing until all its malevolent smoke disappears into his lungs like an infernal waterfall.

The air crackles with energy as Severus gulps the Bisur down, the skin of his cheeks straining thin for the effort. Then there is a silent explosion, like the moment in a movie when the sound has cut off and people continue voicelessly screaming. The evil cloud pours from his mouth and shatters in thousands of shards that dissipate and soon are no more. When the last particle of dark mist has vanished, Severus crumples to the ground in a black pool of robes.

***SSHG***

"No! No! Severus…"

The happiness at the discovery she was no longer fighting for every breath dissipates in a moment. Stricken, Hermione collapses on the floor as well. Tears streak down her cheek as she sobs loudly, unable to stop them. This is not right… why must it happen again? Like this?

"Silly, stupid man… why? We could have found another way… you could have survived!"

She doubles over herself, wailing. She cries and cries, until her sobs subside enough to hear other noises apart from her own despair. The distant sounds of laughter, people talking in other parts of the castle, feet clicking on stone, and – faint but recognisable – his breath. His dear, precious, glorious breath is clearly audible behind the window.

"Severus! Severus, can you hear me?"

Hermione pushes herself up to a sitting position and touches the pane, trying to find an entry. But Severus must have set wards to the room, because she finds none. She knocks on the glass.

Slowly, very slowly, an elbow lifts up from the black heap, a knee moves, a head turns; and slowly, very slowly, two eyelids open, and two very black eyes meet hers.

"You could have died," she whispers, "What have you done?"

"It was the most logical thing… This is what you'd have done," he replies is a voice that doesn't sound like his own.

Hermione shakes her head. "How are you? Why can't I get in?"

"The decontamination process is not complete," Severus rasps in the unknown voice. "But it will be."

"I wish to enter. I wish–"

"Are the students out of danger?"

"Yes. Nobody was coughing anymore when I left the library. People were walking in the corridors again, speaking and breathing normally. Severus, you saved the school. Once again. But at what cost?"

"Isn't this… what you told me when you listed the best Star Trek quotes for me? 'The needs of the many outweigh…'"

"…'The needs of the few. Or the one.' But it shouldn't… Severus, will you survive? How do you feel?"

Hermione presses herself into the glass, her fingers probing the surface as if still trying to find a way in. On the other side, Snape raises himself up on his arms and, one tile at a time, drags himself closer to the window where Hermione is sitting.

"As I have said, it was the most logical solution." His lips curl in a wry smile. "You see, my little Spock: I no longer have a cricovocal membrane."

Hermione stares at him, uncertain whether to strangle him at the soonest possible occasion or to laugh. "Nagini?" she manages to ask.

"Indeed. When you told me that the Bisur nested in the cricovocal membrane, I knew what I had to do."

" _Exposimise_ ," she said in admiring wonder. "By attaching the Bisur to something that does not exist, you have deleted the Bisur's existence, as if switching its polarity."

" _Deletrius_ ," he specifies. "A silent spell. I'm sure you remember those, my little Spock?"

"You know," Hermione replies after a moment, "my favourite Star Trek character is not Spock, strange as it may seem. My favourite is Captain Kirk. In moments of insecurity and doubt, I think of Captain Kirk and find strength in how he made his choices, tempering his instincts with his big heart. And with the help of Mr. Spock."

With careful, economic motions, Severus leans against the stone doorframe. "Despite all evidence to the contrary," he huffs, "I was never particularly interested in Darth Vader either, before unexpected complications renewed our acquaintance. I identified more with Han Solo… or at least, I hoped I could grow into someone like Han Solo, with his cutting remarks, charisma and independence. Part of me wanted… wished to be the hero who saved the day, won the princess and piloted a spaceship. But we all know how that turned out," he finishes with a deprecating snort.

They look at each other through the glass. There is something warm smouldering over his black eyes.

"But you are a hero," Hermione urges, getting so close to the window her breath condenses there, "You iare/i. You saved the school, tonight, and last year, and so many times… Doing what had to be done, even when it wasn't what you wanted to do. And although I have no particular interest in Han Solo… you are my hero."

She presses her hands flat on the pane, staring straight at him though her cheeks turn carmine. "When I came back to Hogwarts, I was honestly scared. I didn't know how well I could adapt… being on the other side of the desk, after so many things had happened in those same classrooms. I knew what I had to do, and I knew I wanted to do it, but I didn't know if I had the strength. I was so very tired. And I'd have tired myself still more, if it weren't for our afternoons. You offered me a space – well, I don't know how willingly, since I simply roamed in and out of your office, eh – but you offered it nonetheless. A place where I could be myself in the new Hogwarts. Not the youngest professor, or the war veteran, or a provider of safety or knowledge, or something else… I could just be me. It is a great gift. Thank you, Severus."

She spreads her fingers on the glass, index and middle finger on one side, ring and little finger on the other, forming a V. "Live long, and prosper," she says.

Severus looks fleetingly amused, then sighs. In a rushed gesture, as if acting before he can think better about it, he extends his arm toward her and matches his hand to hers, on the other side of the pane, spreading his fingers as well in the Vulcan salute. "Love long, and prosper," he murmurs almost inaudibly.

***SSHG***

The second time Severus Snape watches Star Wars in a cinema with a girl at his side is on the first day of the summer holidays. The theatre is full and smells of popcorn and soda, while teenagers everywhere eat, drink, and chatter at inappropriate times during the movie. The day is unusually hot and his Muggle clothes are uncomfortable everywhere, the air is stale and sweaty, and he finally, _finally_ does what all the other couples around him are doing, and kisses Hermione in the dark.

***SSHG***FIN***SSHG***

End notes:

 _Star Wars IV: A New Hope_ was released in the USA in spring 1977 (in the UK only at Christmas, 1977.) In order to allow Snape and Lily to watch it together before they broke their friendship, I had to anticipate its release to spring, 1976.

 _Star Wars I: The Phantom Menace_ was actually distributed in early summer 1999, so I kept that date unchanged. The J. J. Abrams reboot of _Star Wars_ wasn't out yet, of course.

Snape's and Hermione's opinions on ST and SW do not necessarily reflect my own. It was John Brunner who said that _Starship Troopers_ was 'a Victorian's children book.'


End file.
